


Queens of Winter

by partialconstellations



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya Stark Stays, Gen, House Stark, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, Queen in the North, Theon Greyjoy Lives, the pack survives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-19 20:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20216005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialconstellations/pseuds/partialconstellations
Summary: Robbara Stark, First of Her Name, Queen in the North, has been raised by two women to follow in her aunt’s footsteps, been the heir to the free Kingdom of the North since the day she was born.After the war in the South, the Stark queens rule.





	Queens of Winter

Robbara Stark, First of Her Name, Queen in the North, has been raised by two women to follow in her aunt’s footsteps, been the heir to the free Kingdom of the North since the day she was born. 

Her mother, who people always said was a free spirit, always seemed more tame, more traditional in comparison to her aunt, Queen Sansa herself. True, her mother rode and fought like no other, but she always came home in the evenings to Robbara and Father. She always was a steady presence at her sister’s side, as head of her Queensguard and close advisor. She taught her daughter that there was nothing she couldn’t do if she set her mind to it. She taught her the water dance and the Needle and when it became clear that Robbara came after her father in stature, she happily let Ser Brienne take the reins. But most of all, she taught her to listen closely to her Aunt Sansa. Her mother never wanted the throne for herself, said that if her sister died before her, she would remain as Queensguard to her daughter.

Her aunt, on the other hand, ruled with a firm and steady hand, and she taught Robbara her courtesies and the needle just as well as diplomacy, statesmanship and history. Her bannermen say that the Red Wolf was twice wedded, never bedded, but Aunt Sansa had remained firmly unmarried for Robbara’s entire life, even when her bannermen insisted on her needing a _true_ heir, obviously best fathered by that lord’s second or third son. She’d had no children of her own, that much was true, but it was a laughing matter to anyone who knew Queen Sansa that her relationship to the man who never left her side was platonic in nature. 

When she got older, Robbara came to believe that Aunt Sansa and Theon Greyjoy had been wed in a private ceremony, just them in front of the Old Gods, many years ago, perhaps before she was even born. They both had never lost a word on the matter, but they had never denied it either.

Robbara has always known, vaguely, there is a king in the South bearing their name. That he, too, is her uncle, like Jon up in the True North is. But the Southron Kingdoms mean less to her than the True North does. 

She has never been further South than Riverrun, her unknown grandmother’s home, has never met this king she shares blood with. Her mother and Aunt Sansa never liked talking about him, like something had happened between them long ago to twist them apart, that she never quite got the whole story of. Where she has been, however, is north of the ruined Wall. She went at her aunt's insistence, listened to her uncle’s “companion’s” tall tales. Uncle Jon smiled fondly at Tormund, shook his head quietly at the more outrageous ones and grew somber when he told of the Long Night, just like her mother and Aunt Sansa did.

Robbara is six and twenty, with a girl of her own, when she lays first her parents, then her aunt and her own companion to rest, all dead within short succession of each other, like they can’t bear to live without one another anymore. It’s a hard year. Her husband is a calming presence at her side and she is thankful for his steadiness.

It takes a while for the statues to be completed, but the day the last of them is done, she takes little Eddara down to the crypts, to tell her where she came from. 

* * *

_ Eddard Stark. Lord Paramount of the North_. The man she named her daughter after, the man her mother and aunt remembered fondly when they spoke of him. But her aunt’s voice also always carried that bitterness with it. The bitterness of knowing that while she knew he loved her, he never truly knew her. Her mother remembers him differently, the man who had hired a dancing master for her, when the rules had been wrong. It’s almost as if they remember different men.

_ Catelyn Tully Stark. _ A mother first of all, fierce in love of her children, defiant until her last breath. A force of nature of her own, Ser Brienne had said once. Her aunt told her that it was her own mother who taught her how a woman could be strong in her own way, that it was her and her oldest brother she tried to emulate, not her father. Her mother remembers a different woman, a stern presence who always seemed exasperated and disapproving. But they both loved and missed her, there was no doubt of that.

_ Robb Stark, the Young Wolf. King in the North and of the Trident. _ Her own namesake. Both Aunt Sansa and her mother told her to never forget this is where it began, that their brother died too young only because his enemies, more than thrice his age, supposed mastermind strategists themselves, feared him and his victories so much they didn’t dare challenge him in the open field. To not let him be forgotten. To tell his story. _ The North Remembers_, even if the rest of the world does not.

_Rickon Stark. _ Their little brother, whom Aunt Sansa had seen shot in the back in the fields outside Winterfell, after having been a prisoner in their own home, so close and yet so far. Their little brother who never stood a chance, who had the summer of childhood ripped from him and never had the opportunity to grow into a man.

_Jon Snow, the White Wolf. King in the North. _ Queenslayer and King beyond the Wall, the people in the South (and even some of her own bannermen) call him, a mixture of mockery and hurt. But Robbara had seen him with his people, how they thrived, how much he enjoyed the open lands, always with Tormund at his side. She could never imagine him in a castle, neither Northern nor Southron. His body isn’t here either, just like Robb’s and Catelyn’s aren’t. Sansa had got a raven nearly two years ago from his daughter Sigrid, that he had been laid to rest in their own way. Her aunt and mother had gone to the godswood together that night and only come out at dawn.

_ Arya Stark, Slayer of the Night King. Gendry Waters. _ They had been loving parents to the point of overprotectiveness. The things she’s heard about them are things she can hardly imagine them doing. She’s heard that her mother avenged her brother’s and own mother’s deaths, slaughtered an entire House, that she could change her face. If she can, she has never taught Robbara. Everyone knows she’s killed the Night King. Fewer know that she killed the Tyrant Queen, Cersei Lannister. She’s heard that her father ventured into the True North at her uncle’s side, when it was still even more untamed and dangerous than it is now. That he could have been Lord of Storm’s End in the South, but had preferred to stay by her mother’s side and work the trade he had learned. Do the things he was good at, stay with the woman he loved, who, having spent her youth in exile in foreign lands, never wanted to leave her home again.

_Theon Greyjoy, Hero of Winterfell, Queensguard. _ Robbara sent a raven to the Iron Islands, where he came from, and his older sister had told her to bury and honour him in their ways. He had lived and died far from the sea, by his own choice in the end. He would want to stay with his own queen. Robbara wondered, sometimes, if Queen Yara felt betrayed by him, that he had chosen the family of his captors over his birth family. But in truth, he had only chosen Sansa. Where she went, he went, too. So much that he followed her into the grave.

_ Sansa Stark, the Red Wolf. Queen in the North, Liberator of the North. _The direwolf at her feet and the sword upon her knee, like her older brothers, like their ancestors. The direwolf crown upon her brow, like the Crown of Winter on the brow of the kings of old.

Robbara tells Eddara a lot of things about her ancestors, dutifully tells her all the stories about her mother’s and aunt’s siblings, the ones she herself has grown up on, but she tells her about Sansa most of all. Eddara is not old enough to keep more than a blurry memory of her, so she will keep telling her, as often as she can, about the first ruling Queen. The woman who had sacrificed so much for her kingdom and her family. Who had taught her that a smile can hide steel. The woman who had never bent the knee.

* * *

She has another little girl, Sansa, and a boy, Theon, after Eddara. Theon is born when Eddara is three and ten. Robbara has raised Eddara as her heir for so long, had been raised as heir herself, without a doubt to it, that the thought that the little baby at her breast traditionally has the stronger claim doesn’t even occur to her until the first ravens arrive congratulating her on the birth of a true heir. A royal decree is issued not long after, sent into all the corners of the North. One raven flies further north than the others.

_ None will disprove that Sansa the Red Wolf has proven that a woman can rule just as capable as any man. From this day forth, the North will recognise a daughter’s claim the same as a son’s. _

Eddara Stark, First of Her Name, lays her mother to rest far too soon, shortly after her own nameday, a grim reminder that even queens of winter can be taken by the winter. She had planned to travel to the True North to see it for herself, to treat with the Free Folk who knew neither king nor queen come spring, like her own mother had done when she came of age. Instead, she suddenly finds herself head of her House and with a kingdom to rule much sooner than she had expected.

The day Eddara ascends to the throne, there are only quiet whispers that little Prince Theon should have ruled in her stead. The North has been ruled by two queens before her and many lords don’t remember when times were different. Theon is all of four years old and clutching at their father’s leg, watching with wide eyes as the direwolf crown is placed on her brow. Their father has his hand on little Theon’s shoulder and looks at her with a mixture of sadness and pride on his face. Sansa’s head of dark hair is nowhere to be seen. She’s likely hiding out in either the stables or the library, preferring the company of books and horses to other people. 

Sansa Stark, Second of Her Name, succeeds her sister only a few short years later. Her rule starts and ends in strife. Whispers at the two young queens who died so young have started, little Theon isn't all that little anymore and Sansa has never quite managed to get her nose out of her books. 

But while she fiercely misses her sister, and her father has grown even larger circles under his eyes as he mourns his daughter, she has also served as Eddara's advisor, and she knows how to rule. Meanwhile, the girls love Theon and he loves them, and a few boys besides. When she has finally walked in on her little brother and a servant one too many times, she decides to send him north, so that at least someone in their generation has made the trek beyond the Wall, to not only see how their former allies and distant family fare, but so that their relations don’t deteriorate as they have done with the Kingdoms in the South. She should have expected he would come back with a wildling lover and a bastard he insists isn’t one. 

He also brings a letter from the clan’s chieftain, who he says is the granddaughter of Tormund Giantsbane and Jon Wolfborn. Sansa believes it when she reads the words, that Theon has too much of the True North in him and good luck. Their alliance continues. 

When Sansa marries, it is to the third Karstark son. There is not much love lost between her and her husband, but they do their duty and little Arry makes up for much. Theon’s Eddara plays with him like he is one of her toys, but she always takes care and once they grow older, they become inseparable and Sansa dismisses the thought of granting Theon his own keep. He and his strange little family are happy here and she is glad to have him. He is still better with people than Sansa is and so he becomes her intermediary when she gets overwhelmed. The cries of weak queens quieten down, even if they never fully silence. 

When King Brandon in the South dies, after a life too long, there are whispers that he has been poisoned, that he would have never died by natural means. When the Southron Kingdoms elect a new king, it does not take long for them to go to war, to claim back the Kingdom that had gained independence through unjust means. 

Sansa is not built for war. She is a peacetime ruler, an arbitrator, but Theon leads her armies, and he leads them well, until he is felled by either a stray, or a very well-aimed, arrow that punctures his plate where his arm connects to his torso. Both Arry and Eddara are with him as he lays dying, while his wife sets out to kill the man who has killed hers. She comes back bloody and dying, but she has achieved her goal and both children (Sansa can’t stop thinking of them as such, even though Arry is six and ten and Arra eight and ten) mourn Arra’s parents that night, burn them in the way of the Free Folk, to return their ashes to Winterfell and the True North both, so that they can rest together, with both their people. 

Arry and Arra leave for the True North together, to bring news of death to the clan and to ask for aid. The Free Folk’s clans, separate again but fewer, their relations closer, band together and again, they go South, this time to fight a war that is not theirs. They win, for what it’s worth. 

Arry doesn’t return from the last battle and if it weren’t for her younger children, Sansa would not have been able to go on. She should never have been queen, and losing her brother and son within months is unbearable. Her husband isn’t helping, but her father is still there, reminding her that she is a Stark of Winterfell and that she can and will endure. 

The North’s independence is secure again, but its Queen doesn’t recover. She sees it through another harsh winter, but many die, much of the harvest destroyed through siege, many of the fields burned. She holds on until her daughter returns from her pilgrimage; she, too, with a little one, just like her uncle before her. She, too, brings a wife and Sansa and her father both know better than to ask. The Starks are a hard-headed lot.

Not long after, Sansa The Forlorn is succeeded by Catelyn The Wild Wolf in the spring, who is succeeded by Arya The Summer Queen. And so it goes, on and on. The North is ruled by a long line of Stark Queens; it is led by women passionate and kind, fierce and stubborn, but above all, loyal. To their family, their lands, their people, great and small. They keep their relations beyond the Wall and they continue their pilgrimage. They protect their borders in the South, they help the Free Folk during a particularly hard winter and then through and after the first war between multiple clans since their numbers dwindled to dangerously small. They try to safely see their people through the winter. 

* * *

The Southron Kingdoms start calling the Stark Queens the She-Wolves of the North, claim they’re sorceresses with too much wild blood in them, like their own strange Stark king, spread rumours that they kill their sons so the women can rule. But every child lost is mourned and honoured just as fiercely as the Red Wolf mourned and honoured the Young Wolf, many lifetimes ago. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is partially inspired by an insane playthrough of the Crusader Kings 2 AGOT mod in which Robb died eight months into the war of five kings, Sansa inherited, married Theon and cut a bloody path through the Vale, the Westerlands and Victarion-led Iron Isles and all my male heirs seemed to die, which led to the North not having a single king in 150 years.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!  
Kudos, comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.


End file.
